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Not really a superhero comic reader, so this may have an obvious answer somewhere in comic history. But I have a dumb question: If the Mirakuru causes Slade to be super strong, to resist damage and to heal damage (did he not take a direct stomach shot in this episode and not even slow down?), why is he still missing that eye? Even if it was totally removed, should it not "regrow" due to the healing capabilities of the Mirakuru? An arrow to the eye that went deep enough to "kill" someone, would certainly cause brain damage, and that appears to have healed up just fine. The brain, it seems to me, would be at least as fragile an organ as an eye when it comes to healing itself. So the fact that he appears to have no brain damage but is still missing an eye is a curious thing.

It was a good episode. I won't harp on about Shado being the prime motivator for the Ollie-Slade clash -- it shouldn't be. I will just accept that melodrama will always be an important element in most CW series.

The present-day scenes were the best, especially with the tension in the Queen mansion -- knowing that at any point it could snap. Loved the scene where Ollie challenged "Mr. Wilson" to make his move, surrounded by several Team Arrow members. And it made perfect sense that Slade wasn't simply going to stroll into Queen mansion without having his six covered (Sorry, Diggle!).

We all knew it was building towards this point, and while the ship battle was great, a part of me feared that Slade was indeed going to hear Ollie fessing up about choosing Sara over Shado. We can dance around conflicting motivations, the influence of mirakuru and having one's hand forced in a no-win situation. But, two things do not change: a. Ivo pulled the trigger, and b. Ollie's choice, even under duress, resulted in "protecting" Sara's life over Shado's.

Slade can't blame Ollie for killing Shado, since it was Ivo who forced Ollie to make a choice and ultimately pulled the trigger. By the same token, Ollie demonstrated in that moment that Sara was more important to him (guilt-ridden as he was about bringing her aboard the Gambit and placing her in this situation). It's not that he didn't care for Shado too -- he did -- but in that split-second he showed his hand. Sara is alive because of it, and Shado is dead. Slade would be reasonably entitled to hold some resentment over the consequences of Ollie's actions -- he cared for Shado (I think they didn't sell the Slado angle well enough ) -- but not to the degree of conspiring to destroy everything Ollie holds dear. That's the mirakuru talking.

The ship scenes did seem chaotic and convoluted, when you take out the battle and fight sequences. The ship was boarded, prisoners released, Slade cuts off Ivo's hand, Anatoli and a few others escaped the ship with Sara, and Ollie is a prisoner aboard the Slade-controlled ship. I think that's the jist of what happened. I probably need to watch it again, because the ship scenes were frantic and all over the place.

The annoying moment for me was the post-Slade chat between Moira and Ollie at the mansion. This was the time Ollie could (should?) have told Moira about Slade and the danger he poses. Instead, Moira interprets it as Ollie acting up due to their estranged relationship over the Thea paternity secret. This should not have been enough for Ollie to just walk away. He should at least give Moira (and his own family!) some sort of heads-up. If a death results from his inaction, it will be squarely on Ollie. He's keeping secrets and telling lies ... to protect people. Sound familiar, SV fans?

In this ep., the present-day scenes were better. Maybe the island scenes could have been this week -- Ollie and friends preparing -- and next week the final ship battle? It seems crammed in all at once.

A tepid 8/10:

--two points docked for the Shado melodrama motivating the Ollie-Slade feud and the erratic island/ship sequences. Would have been 7.0 but Manu was awesome.

I got a better understanding of Sara in this episode why she is so protective of Roy making sure he is ok. It is a lot like Thomas the missionary that saved her from the other prisoner that was going to kill her. So you get insight to the other happenings going on. Sara needs Oliver right now because she is the only other one that understands Slade's promise to Oliver. Also Sara knew how Ivo thought so she gave him something to counteract the drug.

As for Oliver we start to see how he honor's Shado's memory. The first time he put on the hood and also his training with the bow. Even though him having the nightmare of Shado and his trying to explain to Slade what happened even though Dr. Ivo was trying to manipulate the situation. It makes him see how far Slade is gone with the Mirakuru in his system forming the birth of Deathstroke.

There is Slade what he is going through the birth of "The Promise" with Slade slashing off Dr. Ivo's hand after believing the manipulation of Oliver trying to explain situation of what happened with Shado and Sara. So he makes his targets suffer losing everything they have before he kills them. This is how he chooses how to honor Shado the woman he loves memory but it is also the mirakuru in his system.

Stephen Amell was right to liken this episode to last season's "The Odyssey" very similar format and it did bring more players into the mix. 10/10 all the way.

Really great episode but I think there is a lot more to this Slade situation. In the present he seems like he is in so much more control than in the past, plus he seems super rich. Someone must have taught him how to stay in control of his abilities and I think that someone is using Slade in a much bigger plan...

'90% of the “Arrow” fandom seems to love this episode' - Just being clear the reason I gave it such high marks (9) was for the Slade/Moira/Oliver scenes. By giving it such a high score I might possibly be billed as someone who 'loved' the episode - which is really not the case, I just love bits of it A LOT. As for most of your other comments agree.

I am intending on sticking around for Suicide Squad but after that - there have been several character/story decisions that just leave me cold and I will watch the remaining episodes after the season ends so I can get a continuous picture of what's going on

New here. I blazed through season 1 and season 2 and couldn't get enough! Anyway I don't follow the comics but I feel like they aren't doing justice to Slade's character. He's such a badass but he's heartbroken over a woman they never actually showed him having relations with. I'm not buying it. The mirakuru is a weak excuse for him suddenly devoting his life to destroying Ollie's for something Ollie never directly did. It seems pretty clear that they are setting up for Sara's death and Laurel's rise, or so I've read that Laurel is meant to become the canary. And I'm all for this because I'm a Oliver/Laurel fan, but that might be cause I find her incredibly attractive

Loved the episode, except for the weird continuity with the last episode: didn't Oliver receive the text from Thea while Sara was stitching up (high) Felicity's gunshot wound? The next time we see the group in the Arrow-cave, it seemed as though a lot of time had passed.
Also did anyone catch the belt buckle of the person who knocked out Digg? it's a red K or N or maybe a W (hard to tell). Any ideas?

I have rewatched the episode, and enjoyed it a lot more the second time round. People have been asking if Ivo is Felicity's father. My question is whether the missionary is Felicity's father?

One objection to this is that Felicity is supposed to be Jewish. Of course, the Jewish religion is matrilinear, which means that it's the religious affiliation of the mother that is important, but it still seems a bit improbable that a woman who raises her daughter according to the Jewish religion (Hannukah candles etc) would marry a Christian missionary! So, if we're supposed to take Felicity's Jewishness seriously, I think we have to look for another father... The thought that Dr. Ivo might be Felicity's father intrigued me, because it would give her a dark and mysterious past and hence make her a little more like the other "Arrow" characters, who all have a dark streak, in the sense that they have gone through/are going through dark/tragic experiences. Of course, I don't know if Dr. Ivo is supposed to be Jewish, although he could be Jewish in the "Arrow" version of the comics...